Go to the HealthGrades Web site’s
Patient Safety Excellence Award™ Recipients 2017
page and review the Patient Safety report of one of the hospitals listed there. Here’s how:
1. The “Patient Safety Excellence Award™ Recipients 2014” page lists hospitals that received the award. Click one of the hospitals, and you will be taken to that hospital’s Hospital Quality report.
2. Scroll down to review the hospital’s Safety Ratings and Hospital Quality, Clinical Ratings.
Examine the information in the safety report from the point of view of a patient. State how patient safety ratings would influence your choice of hospital. Which, for you, are the most critical indicators? Give reasons citing indicators and results for those chosen indicators. Write your analysis in one page.
Now, think like a risk manager. List the safety indicators that pertain to the high-risk area you selected in Week 1. This will require some research. Chart audits are widely used, but the information in them varies. For example, checking for proper signatures on all forms and orders can be used universally, while daily recording of medication refrigeration temperature will only be used in some areas.
Select a minimum of three and a maximum of four indicators for measurement in your quality improvement program.
For each indicator, include the following information:
Indicator
Describe the indicator.
Rationale
Explain why this indicator is suitable for the high-risk area you have chosen.
Measurement
Describe and explain how you will measure this indicator.
Finally, explain how these indicators taken together cover all aspects of quality in the high-risk area.
Put together your analysis of patient safety ratings and your list of indicators in a Word document that includes an introduction and conclusion.
Risks Associated with the Emergency Room
Student’s Name:
Institutional Affiliation:
Course:
Date:
An emergency room is essential in hospitals since it is used to serve patients with
conditions that have to be solved urgently. The patients either present themselves or are brought
in by an ambulance. Their cases are taken as urgent since the patients were not able to make an
appointment; an example of such an urgent condition is an accident. In this case, the patient was
not in a condition to know that the accident would take place so that they would make an
appointment with the hospital hence taken as an emergency.
When patients majorly come into the emergency room, there sometimes lacks proper
communication among parties involved. One of the things that the emergency department needs
to know is the nature of the accident. The group responsible for this is the people who bring in
the patient into the emergency room; they should be communicate fast and effectively what
happened to the patient in concern. With ineffective communication, there may be severe
consequences for the patient in this case. This poses a risk to the patient since it is an emergency
condition and lacks enough information on what happened to the patient. Being an urgent
condition, this may sometimes lead to misdiagnosing the patient since there lacks evidence-based
assessment (Gadir, 2019). This is another significant risk posed to the patient by activities of the
emergency room.
The nature of the accident is sometimes unknown, and as the healthcare professionals are
trying to establish this, the health risk is posed to them. The healthcare professional, in this case,
may end being infected by emergency patients. An example of such a case is where the patients
may be having a disease like the current coronavirus; if the healthcare professional is not careful
enough, they will end up contracting the disease (United States Department of Labor, 2020). In
most cases, the profession will not be careful enough since they lack knowledge of the nature of
risk. Another risk posed to healthcare professionals is based on decision making due to the
urgency of the patient’s condition. For this reason, in most cases, healthcare professionals will
end making shared decision-making to reduce the risk.
There is mostly a case of patients overusing the emergency room. This is where patients
with no urgent conditions present themselves in the emergency room, and it will lead to managed
care insurance companies and the patients incurring higher costs. A study performed in 2004
established that overuse of the emergency room was the most common reason for disputes over
coverage. Later in 2017, Anthem, which is a health insurance provider, expanded this denial
coverage to ensure the overuse of the emergency room is not paid for, which provoked public
policy reactions (Gadir, 2019). In the case that there are coverage disputes, the healthcare
provider may end not being paid for the services that they provided. This is a significant risk
posed to the healthcare facility since the overuse of the emergency room may end up bringing
losses to their side.
With all the risks posed to patients, healthcare professionals, and the healthcare facilities
being outlined above, this will help eliminate or mitigate the risks. The risks posed will, in some
instances, end up interfering with the quality of services provided to the patients. It will also end
having a negative impact on healthcare professionals and the facility. With all parties being put
into consideration, quality improvement of the emergency room will be very beneficial.
Reference
Gadir, M. (2019). Risk Management in the Emergency Department. Omnia Health Insights
|News from the global healthcare community. Retrieved 27 September 2020, from
https://insights.omnia-health.com/medical-specialities/risk-management-emergencydepartment.
United States Department of Labor. (2020). Occupational Safety and Health Administration.
https://www.osha.gov/SLTC/etools/hospital/er/er.html.
Thakarar, K., Morgan, J. R., Gaeta, J. M., Hohl, C., & Drainoni, M. L. (2015). Predictors of
frequent emergency room visits among a homeless population. PloS one, 10(4),
e0124552.
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